The ketogenic diet is a kind of low-carb eating plan, and this diet encourages the body to enter into a state called ketosis. Ketosis is a normal and healthy metabolic condition in which the body burns its reserves of fat, rather than making use of glucose as fuel. The burning of those stored fats then produces ketones, which eventually act as the main energy source of the dieter.

The ketogenic diet has been counted on by many individuals who want to lose weight. However, this can be a challenging diet, but followed to the tee, you can reap the rewards that the diet promises. Once your body adapts, it also becomes pretty easy and can become a lifestyle as apposed to a diet.

Benefits of a keto diet

A keto lifestyle has so many benefits. Most people start this diet because they want to lose weight and are then pleasantly surprised with the general health benefits. If you want to lose weight, then this definitely is the diet to give a go. And here is why…

Get rid of excessive fat

The body produces ketones by changing existing fat, thus it will get rid of those ketones as a kind of excess product, which translates to peeing out unneeded body fats.

Minimize appetite

By controlling those strong metabolic hormones in the body, the keto diet is capable of suppressing your appetite. Lowering the insulin resistance of the body and maximizing ketone production will eventually make dieters feel less famished.

Maintain muscle mass

Including the appropriate fats in the diet means it will still present the body with the energy it requires to transform current fat reserves into beneficial sugars and ketones, which are important fuel resources for the heart, brain, and muscles. This has the advantage of maintaining muscle mass integrity, since the healthy fat in the diet provides the body with the energy it needs without having to use muscle protein in order to generate extra sugars.

Want to know more about the advantages and benefits of the keto diet, then read more here.

Keto diet rules

When it comes to keto diet rules, observing the kind of food you consume is probably the most important thing you have to do.

One of the good things about this diet is it does not eliminate the majority of the best-tasting foods found on this planet, like all meats, fish, seafood, certain dairies, olive oil, butter and avocados. You have to avoid vegetables with starches like potatoes and white squash, but you can have your fill of broccoli, kale, cauliflower, chard, spinach, cabbage and cucumber.

Foods can be combined with most seeds and nuts, as long as these items have low levels of carbs. It is also advised that you take in high-fat foods that are not processed. Organic and free-range are something that a number of keto followers are into.

Keto diet rules, especially in the beginning, are quite strict and if you want to have a successful run at it, you have to absolutely put the rules into practice.

Want to know exactly what foods you can eat, then check out our detailed shopping list of must have foods.

For everything you need to know, about exactly how much you should eat. How to calculate net carbs, what you should eat and how much of the different foods you should be eating, check out our

Foods to avoid

There are foods that have to be avoided on a ketogenic diet. Obviously, these are foods that are rich in sugar, carbs, and the wrong kinds of fat. These foods can be detrimental to the body and produce an abundance of glucose that the body will convert into fat reserves.

These foods will also maximize insulin rates and blood sugar levels in the body, and it will curb fat loss even if the dieter is on a strict exercise regimen.

Do yourself a favor, work out what foods are really good for you and that you should eat and place all your focus on them.

Making the keto diet more effective

To make your ketogenic regimen more effective, make sure that your carb intake is mostly from non starchy vegetables and as low as possible.

Your consumption of proteins should be adequate, but that is probably lower than you may think.

Your fat intake should be high in a proportion to carbs and protein and should be as much as 75% of your total calories.

While the ketogenic diet allows you to eat when hunger strikes, you will find that you feel hungry less often. If you do get hungry, you may not be eating enough fat.

Ketogenic meals

For breakfast, you can have at least 2 boiled eggs taken with 100 grams of cheese, and washed down with a cup of coffee, no creamer. In case you feel a bit hungry before lunch, you can make do with 30 to 50 grams of nuts as long as these nuts contain little to no carbs.

For lunch, you can have any kind of meat paired with your choice of vegetables that are allowed on the diet. Eggs and cheeses are also great options. For dessert or snacks, you can have berries with cream or cream cheese.

Dinner might mean a choice of meat or fish with preferred vegetables.

To make life easy get a good cookbook and follow the recipes. Especially when you start out it may be much simpler to just follow a set program with set recipes. As you get more comfortable with what you are doing, then it is time to experiment. But when you start out, get the program, use the recipes and take small steps to better health.

Ketogenic Diet for Beginners – More Questions?

Do you have more questions? Then watch the frequently asked questions video…

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